Sigmund Freud and Jean Harlow

Vanity Fair, May 1935

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In May 1935, V.F.'s contributing illustrator Miguel Covarrubias was once again caught with his Freudian slip showing in that peculiar manifestation of wish fulfillment known as the "Impossible Interview." This time the irrepressible matchmaker had the father of psychoanalysis flipping his id over couch hot potato Jean Harlow, who always attracted more than her share of father figures and had just induced another wave of Venus envy with her latest movie, China Seas. While no doubt unconsciously adorning the analytic lab with provocative decor, Covarrubias provided the good doctor with a dilemma of man and superego. (Sigmund: "You don't understand, Miss Harlow. I want to psychoanalyze your psyche. I want to study your inhibitions." Jean: "You mean exhibitions.") Unfortunately, no mention of the libidinous blonde appears in The Diary of Sigmund Freud: 1929-1939 (Robert Stewart/Scribner's), a volume of Freud's cryptic notes on the last, tormented decade of his life, extensively annotated by Michael Molnar of the Freud Museum in London. But, as the doctor himself would surely have diagnosed, it doesn't hurt to dream.